Will the Wind Topple your Trees?

If you have trees around your home and worry about a fall, one factor to consider is the direction and intensity with which the wind typically blows through your property. If you have been living on a property for many years, you may already know its unique weather patterns. However, if you are new to a property, it is worth taking time to think through before developing a removal or pruning plan.

You can measure the wind direction and speed with simple devices like wind socks or weather vanes or go high tech with digital anemometers and other gadgets. Check out your local prevailing wind data online which graphs direction and speed of winds over many years.

Think about whether your trees are protected on the larger landscape by hills, groups of trees and/or buildings, or are they fully exposed and stand alone on a flat landscape. If there are buffers, have they long been there or have there been recent site changes such as construction or land clearing?

Trees slowly adapt over many years to the site on which they are growing by sensing where additional strength is needed and adjusting height, branching, allocating root and wood growth in order to stand upright against wind forces. Sudden, strong changes in wind direction (like from a storm) or an abrupt change in exposure can drive a tree to the point of breaking or uprooting.